Fury of the Northmen: rethinking Viking violence in the Early Middle Ages

Merely axe-wielding brutes?

In the summer of 843, the city of Nantes became the stage for a nightmare. As the faithful gathered for mass on the feast of St. John, Viking ships slid silently through the Loire estuary’s maze of sandbanks and marshes. What followed was nothing short of a bloodbath. According to one harrowing account, the bishop was struck down mid-sermon at the altar. The congregation, caught in their finest feast-day attire, was chillingly slaughtered. Those not killed outright were dragged to waiting ships: hostages destined for ransom or slavery. The cathedral, once a sanctuary, became a slaughterhouse. The Vikings looted everything of value, such as gold, silver, and relics and disappeared as swiftly as they had come. This scene, with its almost cinematic brutality, is a familiar one: marauding Norsemen descending on unsuspecting Christian towns and monasteries. But was this level of violence exceptional? Or simply emblematic of the turbulent world the Vikings inhabited?

Elaborate Viking swords from the VIKINGR exhibition, Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo

Calculated chaos

The anonymous eyewitness from Nantes, while clearly horrified, gives us clues. The timing of the raid, just a month after Count Rainald of Nantes fell in battle against the Bretons, suggests a level of tactical acumen. Rainald, the Carolingian-appointed military protector of the region, had been killed on May 24, leaving the city effectively leaderless. Into this vacuum sailed the Vikings. The chronicler insinuates that Lambert, son of a former count and described bitterly as a "treacherous villain," may have guided the Norsemen through the estuary's treacherous channels. But in truth, the Vikings likely didn’t need inside help. They were well-informed and astute opportunists, keen observers of Frankish power struggles.

Far from being wild berserkers acting on impulse, these raiders knew precisely when to strike. They waited for the feast day of St. John, when the churches would be full, the people distracted, and the treasures on full display. It wasn’t just an attack; it was a calculated operation aimed at maximum gain. Nantes was no stranger to conflict. The Frankish civil war, pitting the sons of Emperor Louis the Pious against each other since 840, had already torn the region apart. Brittany, an autonomous duchy, posed a constant threat on the western frontier. But what made the Vikings so different was their speed. Carolingian and Breton armies moved slowly, giving civilians time to hide. The Vikings, by contrast, seemed to erupt from the sea, their longships delivering death with terrifying efficiency.

To those who lived through such horrors, the Vikings were the embodiment of chaos and cruelty. Chroniclers remembered them as savage beasts, uninterested in mercy. And yet, most sources are frustratingly vague. They tell us that the Vikings came, they plundered, they killed many, and then they left. Prudentius of Troyes, for example, noted simply that in 836, “the Northmen again devastated Dorestad and Frisia,” and that in 844, they “sailed up the Garonne as far as Toulouse, wreaking destruction everywhere.” Irish and Anglo-Saxon sources follow the same pattern: vague, formulaic language like “laid waste,” “slaughtered,” “devastated”, but rarely any concrete details. We are left with evocative words, but little insight into numbers, motivations, or even where the attackers came from.

Moreover, the image of the Vikings as invincible warriors doesn’t entirely match the material evidence. Early Viking raiders were often poorly equipped. They lacked the heavy armour and cavalry of the Frankish military and instead relied on surprise, speed, and ferocity. In one striking account, a monk from St. Germain recounts how a small Viking force captured 111 Frankish soldiers and hanged them within view of the king’s army - a gruesome act of psychological warfare. Despite being “almost unarmed,” the Vikings outmanoeuvred their better-equipped foes. Over time, of course, their military sophistication grew. Viking mercenaries would serve in elite units like the Byzantine Varangian Guard. Grave goods begin to include high-quality weapons, like the famed “Ulfberht” swords, but in the early stages, these were not professional soldiers. They were ambitious, daring men seizing opportunities in a fractured and violent world.

Vikings disembarking in England, from a 10th-century Scandinavian manuscript

It’s also worth remembering who wrote these accounts. Monks, bishops, and priests - the very people most likely to be targeted by Viking raids - were also the ones documenting them. Their perspectives were deeply shaped by religious fear and moral anxiety. When Lindisfarne was raided in 793, the theologian Alcuin didn’t just see a military strike, he saw divine judgment. Was this “the beginning of the great suffering” foretold in Christian prophecy, he asked, or punishment for moral decay? In many annals, the Norse are simply “the heathens,” a spiritual threat as much as a physical one.

Even Norse brutality was sometimes used to send a message. The monk of St. Germain recounts the hanging of Frankish soldiers not merely as cruelty but as calculated theatre. It was a performance of dominance, intended to demoralise and shame. And while later stories of Viking cruelty like the infamous “blood eagle” execution may be exaggerated or symbolic, they echo the same theme: the Vikings understood the power of fear.

But brutality wasn’t their only tactic. Often, Vikings preferred extortion to destruction. Danegeld, the ransom paid to prevent further raids, became a lucrative business. Many Viking leaders used these payments to consolidate power, fund future raids, or attract followers. They weren’t mindless pillagers. They were entrepreneurs of violence, mixing raiding with trading, conquest with commerce. As the decades passed, some Vikings stopped raiding altogether and began settling, integrating into the very societies they once attacked. Part of the reason for the raiding boom lies in internal Scandinavian dynamics. Viking Age Scandinavia was not comprised of unified kingdoms but a patchwork of rival chieftains. Power was local, volatile, and often violent. Exporting violence through overseas raids became a way to relieve internal pressures and expand influence abroad. A fascinating recent study explores just how differently violence functioned within Scandinavia itself.

Different flavours of violence

In a comparative analysis titled “Violence as a Lens to Viking Societies: A Comparison of Norway and Denmark,” (Bill et al., Journal of Anthropological Archeology, Vol. 75, 2024) researchers applied tools from archaeology, osteology, and philology to explore how violence reflected deeper social structures. The main argument: the more centralised the political authority, the more controlled and regulated the violence.

Peter Nikolai Arbo, The Battle of Stiklestad

In Norway, the data paints a grim picture. About 60% of skeletal remains from the sample show signs of trauma from weapons, with 37% indicating death from violence. Injuries from swords, axes, spears, and blunt objects were common, especially among men, though women were not exempt. Violence here was personal, decentralised: feuds, raids, and clan rivalries playing out in both core and peripheral regions. Denmark tells a different story. Only 7% of skeletons show trauma, and most violent deaths were executions, state-sanctioned acts of control. Fewer weapons were buried in Danish graves, and those belonged mostly to a mounted warrior elite. Where Norway’s violence was widespread and chaotic, Denmark’s was vertical and organised, controlled by an increasingly centralised aristocracy. Only 85 Viking Age swords have been recovered from Danish graves, compared to over 3,000 in Norway.

Other indicators reinforce this contrast. Denmark boasted large-scale infrastructure projects like the Danevirke fortifications, which is evidence of elite coordination and power. Runestones in Denmark often emphasise rank, title, and service to lords, reflecting a more hierarchical social model. In contrast, Norway’s archaeology reveals a flatter, more fragmented political landscape and a more violent one. This supports broader sociological theories from thinkers like Max Weber and Charles Tilly: as states centralise, they monopolise violence. The Danish crown, by exerting greater control, reduced everyday interpersonal conflict. Norway, lacking this cohesion, remained a land of competing factions and endemic violence.

The takeaway? The Vikings were not a monolith. Their reputation for brutality is grounded in both fact and fear, but the reality was far more complex. Viking violence was shaped by opportunity, strategy, and shifting internal politics. To truly understand the Viking Age, we must look beyond the stereotypes of blood-soaked marauders and ask what their actions reveal about the world they moved through and the worlds they left behind. Far from offering a simple answer, the story of Viking violence forces us to confront a deeply complicated past - one where myth, memory, and material evidence collide in a storm of fire, fear, and fascinating ambiguity.